Jordan Spieth is finding his game again just in time for the Masters

A familiar name is at the top of the leaderboard at the Valero Texas Open, as Jordan Spieth finds himself in contention for the first time this year.

It took a trip back home to Texas for Jordan Spieth to find out what’s been plaguing his golf game for the past 21 months.

The Dallas native shot a four-under 68 in Friday’s second round of the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio, getting into an eight-way tie for the lead heading into the weekend. Beginning his round on the back-nine, Spieth made an opening bogey from the fairway on the 10th but recovered with a chip-in birdie from the greenside rough on 11. He set up another birdie on the 17th with an 87-yard chip shot to eight feet, but even that wedge shot paled in comparison to what he would do on the eighth hole, his 17th of the round. Facing a 113-yard third shot on the par-five, Spieth holed out for eagle to get to eight-under for the tournament.

It must be a relief for Spieth to find himself back on top of a PGA Tour leaderboard. The 25-year-old hasn’t finished better than 35th in any stroke-play event on tour this season. His last top-10 was at the Open Championship last July; his last win on tour came in the Open at Royal Birkdale in 2017, his third major championship.

Since then, Spieth, the former No. 1 ranked player in the world, has plummeted to 32nd in the Official World Rankings. The player who had a breakout season in 2015 by winning two majors was long gone; in his place was a man who’s struggling in all facets of his game.

Spieth ranks 81st in putting on the PGA Tour this season after being second in that category just three years ago. In that 2015 season, he led the tour in putting from 20 feet but is 70th this year. In 2017 he was second in strokes gained: tee-to-green and total strokes gained; this year he’s 188th and 167th, respectively.

This week at TPC San Antonio, however, Spieth looks back to his old self. He’s seventh so far in strokes gained: tee-to-green through two rounds, and says the great wedge shots he hit, despite missing a few at the start of the round, was the difference in his low score on Friday.

“I missed greens and made a couple of bogeys with wedges from the fairway, which is unlike me. But made up for it by playing the par-fives really well. Certainly, with a bonus with that hole out on eight,” he told PGATour.com after the round. “That holed out wedge kind of made up for, you know, those ones that missed the greens.”

“All in all, I think I progressed today from yesterday. And that’s all I’m looking to do day-to-day.”

Spieth’s return to form doesn’t just bode well for the Texas Open, though. The 2015 Masters champion heads to Augusta National next week for the year’s first major championship. In five appearances at the Masters, Spieth has four top-three finishes.

He’s in contention this week at home in Texas, but a part of him has to be looking forward to heading back to such friendly confines in a few days. If he’s to break his 21-month-long winless drought, he couldn’t pick any better spots than his own backyard or at a course where he’s had so much success in his career.